Pacify: an Attempted Work of Mercy
by dorcas
Summary: Kagome has an unexpected visitor in the modern era: Naraku's ghostly apparition! In order to be rid of him she must set aside past grievances and tackle his problems as if they were her own, for they do share the same goal-good riddance. Contains humor and strange situations, because apparently death contains life. Set one year after the big battle.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Inuyasha. Rumiko Takahashi created the series, Viz distributes the manga in the U.S., and Ocean Studios did the spectacular dub from Canada.

CAUTION! This fic is SPOILERIFIC by nature. You have been warned!

So, I realize that romantic stories always get the most attention, but I was just thinking that the story of Inuyasha is full of other things. Naraku seems like a one-dimensional villain who has only his hate and petty jealously to keep him running, but by the end of the series we see Kagome confront him so it looks like he does what he does without sufficient motive. Like, what was he even after all this time, and how did all this get him closer to achieving it? There was a moment near the end of the series that I felt could have been uber-interesting. It was when Kagome—SPOILER!—narrowly escapes being absorbed by Naraku, or maybe kidnapped. I felt that even though she couldn't defend herself, it would have been cool to see her directly confront him on her own. I also thought at the end—SPOILER! Okay enough of that the rest of this fic is chock full of spoilers so if you haven't finished, do not read further—why didn't Rumiko Takahashi have Naraku and Kagome briefly take the places within the Shikon jewel and fight? Even a little of that before Inuyasha arrived would have been exciting! Though by "fight" I mean for them to sit and have a discussion, as you will see. I like confrontational conversations. That's all this is.

This story is set one year after the well closes up, so Kagome is in high school and living normally.

1: First Day

She first noticed him in class.

That is, she saw his head floating malevolently above the chalkboard, as if egging on the teacher to do the lamentable evil of cramping the history notes the students were supposed to be copying with such tightness that even those invested in the treaties of bygone eras despaired of ever deciphering the shapeless white jumbled lines. He was not sneering, but his cheeks were milky and soft-looking as moth wings, and his hair weightlessly twisting itself, resembling electrical cables or frayed ropes. He was Naraku, and when he caught her staring, he blinked.

His own stare was enough, however, to jolt her into action. She raised her hand and said, regretfully but truthfully, that she had the feeling she was going to be sick. The teacher was surprised, seeing as Kagome had been "in remission" from her conglomerate of diseases for about a year. Other students who had attended her middle school followed her exit with their eyes, some concerned and some annoyed at her act starting up again. Along with those stares at her back she felt his growing presence drift after her.

Against her better judgment she looked over her shoulder for a peek at her nemesis. She only glimpsed his hollow, hungry eyes and the thin line of his mouth before whipping her head back again, for beyond, or through him she had seen a group of third-year girls rounding the corner. She could not afford to draw attention. Absently she scratched her head. When her arm lowered, by the side of her head was Naraku's expressionless face on his disembodied head. She managed to contain a shudder and resolved to ignore him until she reached her as yet unknown but necessarily secluded destination. The halls of her high school stretched long and deserted before her, and she was acutely aware that she was practically alone with him. When she cleared the front door, she felt even more oppressed by this notion. It was as if—

"No one can save you now," supplied Naraku, and he smiled to see her jump.

0o0o0

Finally she had no alternative but to take him home because a: he would not be dismissed, b: any public space she might have chosen, even a park, would be too risky for conversing with a demon, and c: Naraku suggested it. He asked, "Would you not have been leaving for home soon in any case?" This confirmed her fears that he had been spying on her and knew too much to be let out of her sight. So she took the shortest route, passing by business people on lunch and mothers shopping with their babies and hoping none of what he was could be sensed.

She marched up the many steps to the shrine. At the top she tried making a beeline for the Bone Eater's Well, but halfway across the grounds she noticed the pressure had slightly, spiritually speaking, lifted off her shoulders and looked back to see Naraku had not followed. His eyes were roaming her home. She realized, scowling, that he had tricked her into revealing her home. "How fitting that you should be a princess."

For the first time that day she recognized his sneer. Clamping her hands to her hips, she tossed her head in a gesture meant to keeps him from thinking she was intimidated. But Naraku was not to be fooled by an amateur liar. His sneer remained a constant as he closed the distance between them too quickly for her to conceal the surprise on her face. Whether she had inadvertently put up a barrier or he was planning something so diabolical she didn't need to make direct contact with her, he kept about a foot or more from her. This she could be grateful for, although anyway, she thought, wrinkling her nose, he didn't have any arms. The absurdity of his floating head was supported only by a few inches of his neck and what looked to be fragments of his spine.

Kagome swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat. This was certainly reminding her of old, old times—the gore of the Feudal Era. Without conceding a blink to her adversary, she turned on her heel and continued to the Bone Eater's Well. This time he followed after her with something resembling amusement. When she shot opened the door, though, his expression turned sour. "I hardly think there is any need for that dog's interference."

Fleetingly pleased he had tacitly admitted Inuyasha's power was capable—indeed, it had already—of overcoming his own, she decided to leave the door open for the comfort the sunlight provided, then sat on the first step. "I thought you knew Inuyasha's name: use it. Don't worry though, he won't be coming."

"Little fool," he said, delighted. "Why reveal your vulnerability to me? Now nothing can stop me."

"Nothing was stopping you all the way here," Kagome pointed out, taking a risk. "You could have taken a shot at me at school, but you didn't, even though there wasn't anything anybody could do. They couldn't even see you. It's not like you to pass up on an opportunity like that." He had by this time reverted to his blank, hollow face, letting her run her mouth. She gave one further push. "I'm betting you actually can't do anything. You're like a ghost!"

Now he frowned. "Ghost? I, Naraku, reduced to a mere specter?"

"And not even a dangerous one," Kagome added happily. "Looks like it's all you can do to zip around making faces at me. You didn't get any powers!" This conclusion, if correct, would bring her great relief. About two years prior, when her miko powers were only just becoming accessible, she had successfully confronted a child poltergeist. It was a little girl named Mayu, and she had proven formidable with her ability to manipulate objects. Then again, Mayu was a human and originally an innocent, while Naraku was—well, in terms of justice, the deeds he had done had no mitigating circumstances to them; he did evil probably because he was just a straight-up evil guy. _Stuck on evil, you might say,_ thought Kagome. She was confident whatever Powers That Be would not allow Mr. Demon the Dastardly to retain his strength.

But Naraku said levelly, "We will see," and the threat did not go missed. "I do not see you using your spiritual powers either, Kagome."

It was always disconcerting to hear her name from the lips of His Sliminess. She shifted her legs one over the other. "I don't need to use sacred arrows or barriers or prayers in my own time. There usually aren't demons running around eating people; all that stopped centuries ago." A flicker of uncertainty flashed in his eyes, and being a miko, Kagome caught it. "Anyway, don't try turning this on me. This is my turf," she said in what she hoped was a firm, no-nonsense voice. "Now I wanna know how long you've been here, what you're up to, and why you're a ghost."

"I have only just arrived, wench," he answered, and though he was clearly angry at her audacity, she was cheered by the unexpected compliance. "I have prepared nothing as of yet, and as it seems I must first test my own abilities, you may expect some delay before your death."

She rolled her eyes at that, but stayed on track. "You just got here? What's the last thing you remember?" When he did not speak up, she folded her arms. The dim and dusty lighting shadowed his face, but she could tell it was still as stone. "This is the twenty-first century. It's been more than five hundred years since we beat you that last time. Have you been like this all those years?"

"Ah," said Naraku. "I had forgotten you hailed from a different time, as the reincarnation of Kikyo." Kagome pressed her lips together and waited. "I was over the well," he said after a pause. "I said that I had made a wish not my own on the Shikon jewel. I saw the faces of all you imbeciles and then I slept."

"You went to sleep?" asked Kagome, setting aside for the present the uncalled-for commentary. "No, you died. You definitely died—we saw it!"

He looked at her with infinite disdain. "At that time I believed I must at last die, but obviously it was only sleep, for otherwise how could I be here?"

"But you aren't here, not really." Kagome leaned her chin on her hand pensively. Now that she had decided he was a ghost, she would reason from there. "I think you died when we thought you did and your soul has been dormant for five hundred years, waiting for the chance to get at me again." The terrible Noh mask had bided its time in this way—why not Snakes-In-Pants here? She glanced at him sidelong. "Too bad you're totally helpless."

"Do you care to try me?" His voice lowered so it rumbled; he had tired of her cheek. Kagome saw him make a sort of lunge at her—it was still in the half-blackness, so it startled her—only to stop inches from her own face, and after a moment float backwards to his former position in the air. His frown was now unmistakably frustrated.

"Don't take this the wrong way," said Kagome once she had recovered her wits, "but I thought you'd be above headbutting." She perked up. "We should try out the reverse!" And she threw a punch with all her might.

She had meant to smack the snot out of him, but he remained untouched and vaguely annoyed. Her fist had met nothing but dust particles. _It's_ _not a total loss, though_, she told herself. She had been proven right. "That settles it. Naraku, you're a ghost," she declared triumphantly.

0o0o0

The victory lightened her spirits for a few hours. She went inside the house humming, and set about preparing the modern feast of Japanese curry for her family. This only meant dealing with the rice cooker and two packets of seasoning, and cutting a few vegetables, which suited her level of aptitude. However disappointed Mom might be that she had let herself out of school early, she could point to her efforts to make up for it. To her surprise and dismay, though, when her mother did return from her errands she was not as lenient as she had been in the past. Not to be charmed by the aroma of instant curry sauce, she demanded a valid explanation for playing hooky which Kagome could not give her. A little more than two years ago Inuyasha himself had appeared to explain their arrangement, but however much she swung her eyes between her mother and the dark splotch of evil spiritual energy, Kagome saw that her miko powers had put her at a disadvantage. She was set to washing dishes and after that, to her room.

For his part, Naraku kept chuckling darkly when he realized what trouble this caused her, so that the minute she closed the bedroom door she grumbled, "Yeah, keep laughing; it's all you can do."

But it wasn't. That is, Count du Giggles had only the weapon of his presence at his disposal, but he was nothing if not opportunistic. He quickly learned that he was indeed a force to be reckoned with: a distraction. Her open biology book was no match for Naraku, who had a disparaging comment for her cloths, her bed, the stuffed animals and knick-knacks which lined her shelves, and especially the pictures on her walls and desk. It was extremely difficult to concentrate on microorganisms and their habits when she could hear him making off-color remarks like, "this one seems fat enough that the wolf tribe would have a time of it in the attempt of devouring her," or "I recall the face of this young lady; I killed her family, but the brat ran off and it was too troublesome to finish her off at the moment."

She could not, unfortunately, cast her "sit" spell on him any more than she could stop his staring. She closed her closet door, covered the stuffed animals with a spare quilt, and lay ever framed picture glass down. Propping her biology book up vertically, she began, feeling a bit self-conscious, to read aloud. Her voice, even droning about mitochondria and plant cell walls, was a welcome breather from the bite of his. It was not long before Souta, in his special little brother way, burst open the door. "Only grade-schoolers do that, you know that, sis?"

She offered that it was all the rage for final exam studying in high school, then dashed past him towards dinner before he reminded her the term had started two weeks ago. Mom had made chicken and more vegetables to go with the curry. Kagome lingered over every mouthful, loath to return to her bedroom. Naraku glowering at them over the table was no fun, but being alone with him was worse. As she predicted, Gramps sensed no ghostly or demonic aura in the room, and the other two were naturally oblivious as well.

Dinner had been such a nerve-wracking affair that Kagome found her stomach had become upset. She volunteered to do the dishes, hoping the motion might settle her, but even with her eyes fixed on a stubborn stain she knew Naraku hovered over each of her cherished family members in turn. Apparently miko powers entailed spiritual eyes on the back of her head. This, she decided, she could do without. She placed the last teacup on the dishwasher rack and reluctantly, sluggishly made her way upstairs again.

The moment Kagome's hand touched the knob to her room, Naraku asked her, "Do you know the first thing I will do once I regain my strength?"

"No," she replied, without missing a beat, because she had to convince herself—she had already, earlier, hadn't she?—that it was not yet certain he ever would become corporeal, in the same way that it was not yet certain Inuyasha would never come for her again. _I have to keep an open mind_, she thought, and stepped inside.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Inuyasha, the manga created by Rumiko Takahashi, who also brought to us Ranma ½, Maison Ikkoku, and Urusei Yatsura. Sometimes, if you're really lucky, you can catch some old manga books at Goodwill in the Young Adult book section; I found three Ranma ½ books.

* * *

By good fortune the next day happened to be a Saturday. The unfortunate fact was only that Kagome could not enjoy it in solitude or pleasant company, but was constantly escorted by the apparition of her adversary. The night prior she had worried that he would do his damnedest to keep her from sleeping, but he had said nothing, seemingly content to soak up the night. The only fright she had was when she opened her eyes without thinking and observed him in a corner, unsmiling, pale and luminous in the ghastly way. A titanic amount of willpower kept her from hiding her head under the covers.

Now, sitting on the sofa and surfing the channels, she knew she would be stuck inside the house for the day. Even though she sensed him trying to recharge his black magic energy, she did not trust herself to maintain tranquility in the face of his schemes. She had to be prepared for surprises. When she looked over her shoulder and saw him watching her, she was relieved he was only focused on her as his obstacle to freedom rather than others not involved.

Presently she got to her feet and retrieved snacks from the kitchen, but was promptly sent back to the table by her mother, who had made a rule about eating in the house ever since Souta's friends had made visiting a rowdy and messy event. Kagome plopped into a chair with a sigh, pulled open the plastic bag of chips, and commenced munching. Naraku, who peered narrowly at the bright colors of the bag, said, "This morning your brother performed a spell without words."

She was thrown off for two seconds before she made the connection between his staring at her modern food and his comment. "Oh really? What'd he do?"

"He poured boiled water into a flimsy vessel and transformed a solid substance into soba noodles which came apart easily. Kagome, what sorcery is this?"

It was a pity she could not laugh; the glint in his eyes told her she considered this "transformation" a discovery of great magnitude. He was probably thinking along the lines of melting his enemies, or softening their bodies in order to shred them with ease. Early on, before he had birthed incarnations, Naraku had dabbled in sorcery, and though he was at no point a match for a serious holy person, it had served him well enough to curse many, including Miroku's family. Now Naraku saw a possible leg-up; Kagome reveled in the futility of it. "It's not magic; it's technology," she summarized.

"Technology," he repeated dubiously. "Do you mean metal machinery, like the guns imported from the main land?"

"More useful," she could not resist answering. She debated whether to try to explain freeze-drying and astronauts, which had gone unsuccessfully with Inuyasha, but held off for a devious thought. "It's ninja food," she told him.

He was not amused. "I believe I persuaded you yesterday not to attempt deception on me."

"I didn't hear you," said Kagome with feigned innocence. Then she caved. "Ok, that's just what Shippo used to call it; this stuff was his favorite, and Inuyasha's too," she babbled, aware that his slow blink signified bubbling anger. "What they do is they make the ramen like normal, ok? That's what you get at the end, too. But they take the ramen, see, and they dehydrate it. I mean, um, they suck out all the water from the ramen so it goes all hard. That's what you saw in the cup first. Anyway the boiled water dehydrates it back again so it's like normal and you can eat it! They made it for the astronauts first but since it got easy to do everybody eats it." The tangent had spiraled out of her control. She slurped her noodles in hopes that he would ask no more.

Hopes are denied every day. "Shippo," said Naraku musingly. Kagome nearly choked on a sandpaper-textured carrot. "I have heard that name before."

"No you haven't," she deflected clumsily, now that the cedar-fence-board carrot was safely down the hatch. Naraku regarded her as one regards a three-legged one-eyed deaf runt-of-the-litter puppy: cute, trying its best, but ultimately destined for death.

"Ah, I do seem to recall a small fox demon brat running behind the rest of your pathetic group." He inclined his head towards hers, and to her dismay he was interested. "I do not seem to recall specifically destroying any fox demon dens. Was this Shippo of yours hoping for revenge as well?"

"As a matter of fact," answered Kagome with a touch of self-satisfaction, "Shippo joined up with me 'n Inuyasha way before we even heard about you. He stuck with us 'cause he liked being around _moi_." It was her turn to smirk at him, and she brightened at how gracelessly he took it. "Turns out you didn't ruin everyone's lives. And you thought you were the center of all evil."

She finished the cup and quickly cleaned up after herself. As she exited the kitchen, behind her was uttered the faintest of growls.

0o0o0

Going out with Yuka and Eri was out of the question. The talk at dinner the previous night had been strained because Kagome, usually a happy babbler, had been reticent in the presence of her foe. She disliked the amount of intel about her he gained simply by listening on her conversations, and though her family was so open and carefree around her it was cringe worthy, Kagome held a different type of intimacy with her friends she was not going to welcome Naraku into. Every tidbit he learned about her was a potential point of attack. Granted, he evidently had no material power, but she had no way of knowing whether these circumstances were only temporary, as he hoped. Her defenses had to be ready before school on Monday.

But first a movie. She flipped through the channels, looking for something that would not cause her to bawl her eyes out in front of her enemy. Nothing emotional, sentimental or romantic.

0o0o0

How she wound up watching Princess Tutu with Naraku in the room she could not figure, but she did it: she had herself a magical girl marathon of the entire second season. Souta entered the living room once briefly, but immediately ducked back out (pun intended) in search of saner grounds. Likewise her mother excused herself, saying it was not quite her cup of tea, and Gramps grumbled something about all the immodest outfits, ballerina traditions notwithstanding. ("Those foreign arts poison the spirit of Japan!" "But it's a Japanese show, Grandpa." "Young people and their temptations aren't even discreet these days! No shame!") With each passing episode Kagome could relate herself with each respective heroine more and more; the fear of Rue as she could not help loving the prince interrupted from restoration, the prince of her own contrivance, who turned against her with venomous ferocity; the alternating temerity and doubt of Ahiru the duck, who did not rightfully have a place among the story's characters and yet interfered always with the best intentions at heart. The message was hope all along, and the final episode was one long note ringing sweet and insurmountable.

When the credits rolled, the last classical song played and the last tear was wiped, Naraku, who had kept deathly still and composed through each and every episode, even the one with Femio and his bizarre bull stampedes, said nothing. He stared at Kagome as if she was an extra-terrestrial, and to be fair, she was without a doubt not only from a completely different world practically speaking, but also might as well be more than half another species. Although he was a hanyou, he was still an adult male. What had just transpired, Kagome realized, was an event so surreal there was no earthly comparison. If Batman were to a: exist and b: drop by the local penitentiary delivering cookies to convicts, that would make more sense than what had just happened in her home. Kagome became a little embarrassed. "So what?" she snapped. "Can't a girl watch a little magical girl?"

"You were weeping." His stare was cautiously probing, as if what sat before him was a curiosity he did not care to explore too well, or rather as if he had seen the depths and now sought justification for the actuality of such horrors.

"Yeah, yeah. I don't usually go for cartoons. Only otaku really like manga and anime, and it's only 'cause they don't have lives of their own that they get into this sappy stuff."

"Ah."

Him and his "ah"s were beginning to irk her. She rose to her feet. "What does that make me, you ask? Like any normal person I am a fan, you might say, of true love." Despite herself, she blushed in humiliation. "And there's nothing wrong with that! You saw how it won in the end!"

"Anything will do to defeat a raven demon." The corners of his mouth twitched upward like the appendages of a daddy-long-leg. "I concede that your group was able to destroy me, but it surely was not done with this 'true love'." The words were not spat out, but were full of derision anyhow and the phrase sounded shameful when he said it. "The bond between the monk and the slayer, for example, quite easily proved to be their greatest weakness."

"Whatever!" she huffed, but in the next moment she heard her mother stop the faucet running in the kitchen. "I can't do this with you here," she stage-whispered, putting her index finger through his nose because she knew he couldn't chomp it off.

She led him upstairs to her room, shut the door, and sat at her desk. Then she moved to her bed so she would not have to see him resting above it. "Sango and Miroku helped each other so many times I can't count. They sometimes had good reasons to quit, but they didn't because they both hated you and loved each other. They were like an unbeatable team!" She was defending not only her friends, but her own matchmaker powers against his presumption.

"It made them weak," reiterated Naraku. His abominable smile came creeping back. "Do you not know? Were you not told?"

"Know what? Told what?" At his eager widened eyes she balked. "Nevermind. I don't wanna hear it from you."

"Sango, your friend the slayer," he plowed over her protests, "as good as murdered the human child, Rin. She threw her weapon, and it was well aimed. It would have taken its mark were it not for the interference of others."

"You're lying." Kagome's hands were clenched into fists. "You're lying like always. Don't you lie about my friends!" she half shouted, helplessly trying to keep quiet in her bedroom but angry because she sensed no falsehood.

"I have no need to lie. It is the truth. You sense this, do you not?" He looked down his nose at the untrained miko, and his smile was contemptuous and self-celebratory. He gloated: "Even if it did not end with the girl's life taken by the slayer, as I planned, it is just as well, for Sango intended to kill her, and would have. Now her soul is tainted, and she cannot live with the knowledge that she is no better than a murderer. I cannot imagine she will now blithely continue with the monk as before."

_Can this be true? I don't feel a lie…but, but it has to be…_ As Naraku grew more elated, Kagome's fearful doubts grew like weeds. It had all gone so quickly; there had been no time, in that gigantic cavern Naraku dubbed his body, to catch up and reassure each other past the sufficient revelation that they were all alive and in fighting condition. _Sango…_ Kagome's hand, unbidden, was at her lips. _I wasn't paying attention… I was focused on Naraku and the jewel…. If Sango had looked a bit worse for wear it was to be expected given the circumstances of the battle. Had Miroku known?_ She ripped her gaze from the carpet and saw Naraku watching her gleefully. "Be quiet!" she said, though he was doing just that.

But now he laughed. He laughed in the same way he had when he had killed Kikyo, when he twisted the knife in anyone's wounds. He had always laughed this way when he knew he had crossed the line, and every time he did it she felt chilled and scalded simultaneously, just like his miasma, if it had breached her system. He was vile, and he reveled in the anguish he caused. "It is of great comfort to me," he said, finally regaining his rolling, silky tones, "to know that even if I am gone from the world I hated, I have taken my share of the spoils. I have won my own victories."

"You don't know." She glared at him, though his conceit made him impervious. "You can't know whether they made it. The last time you saw them was at the well, so don't act all smug like it's a sure thing they'll never be happy." Before he could reply she stood and strode out of her bedroom, not looking back to see if her celerity amused him further.

It was still light outside; the lengthening days of spring had been keeping her awake longer after dark. It had already been difficult to sleep before he arrived. No, thought Kagome, shaking her head in the hallway. Naraku passed through her door and only saw her wagging hair. She descended from the second floor and made her way out of the house and to the shed out back.

"I've been meaning to take care of this," she declared, letting the ghost at her side orient himself in the closest thing the modern world she knew had to a crypt of secrets. Cobwebs out of Gramps' reach hung in every corner and between shelves. Wooden boxes and stone containers for pulverized herbs and bones or artifacts of questionable value crowded the pathways where the shelves failed to accommodate their number. Dust blanketed ever flat surface in layers, which were so packed they were not easily disturbed. The air, though Kagome doubted he could smell it, was musty and thick. She waved a hand in front of her face in vain; the odor of items aged unwell was potent and noxious, and it dominated the room. Using her hand as a makeshift mask she navigated with the aid of her memory to the corner she had stashed the bike. She pulled it free of the knick-knacks and small fake ritual items which had anchored it for months, and, finding it impossible to roll, lifted it with minimal effort and high-stepped perilously across to the open door. She was grateful the spirit which waited there was not capable of shutting it on her.

Outside, she set it on its kickstand. Taking a deep breath, she dove back inside for the pump, with alacrity so as not to become with the live occupants of the shed. In this fashion she retrieved a few rags, a basket, and the tools with which to attach it. The sunlight was still strong, but dusk would fall soon, so she could spend the rest of the day tinkering and she would not have to meet the impassive yet intense eyes of the enemy.

That was the plan, but she had failed to account for his persistence. It was among his most prominent qualities, unfortunately. "What in all hells is this contraption? You rode it even though it was only slightly faster than running. This thing would have been the death of you long ago were it not for the others in your entourage."

"They're not my entourage, they're my friends." She rubbed harder at a clump of dried mud. For a second she thought he might try baiting her by using the tense—"they were"—but that was too petty for him. Still, why give him the chance? "Like you say, it's for riding like a horse. It helps me be lazy. In—the others," she continued, having barely escaped blurting the name she did not yet want mentioned, "called it an iron cart, but it's actually a bike."

"Bike?"

"Bicycle," she amended, suddenly possessive of modern terminology. Slang from the mouth of Naraku would be obscene.

"I recall the bicycle you rode as being brighter in color."

She blinked, then dropped the rag and picked up the basket. He was instigating a conversation and she could either rebuff or engage him. She opted for what came naturally, even with her enemy. "Yeah, the one I had before was pink. This basket actually was on that one for a long time. That pink bike was great, even on the rocks and hills—or maybe that's why it broke. It wasn't a mountain bike, really, but I rode it like one and got it bent out of shape. Mom got me another one through a friend, but it didn't even make it to the past."

"Why not?"

He had caught the slight smile; she could have cursed her imprudence, but there was no way out. She expelled a breath. The topic would have to come up eventually, so she might as well breach it with authority and gain ground first. "Inuyasha smashed it." The basket jostled against the handle bar and made a sharp click which she pretended not to hear. "He was trying to fix it after he twisted the front part like licorice, but ended up crushing the whole thing into a ball. I think he said it attacked him or something, the dummy," she said fondly.

Naraku was disgusted. She did not have to look at him to know he looked at her banefully. "Your lover was given the privilege to destroy things, I see."

She was ready enough to not be flustered. "Inuyasha was never my boyfriend. He and I had a relationship that was complicated—or maybe it wasn't. Whatever happened, it was what we did for each other that mattered. I decided to stay by his side, and he always saved me. The rest wasn't important, now that I think about it."

"Now that it is over, you mean," he said, and he loomed over her. Despite her concrete decision not to make eye contact, she looked up and saw he was satisfied with what he had learned. Perhaps this was one tidbit of intelligence she had yielded too soon. "That fool Inuyasha may have saved you in the past, but no longer. You confessed yourself that he would not come." He needled her further, closing in so she was tempted to either lean back or stand so at least she would not be over her, though of course he would only float higher. "I do believe your precious Inuyasha will never see you again, and neither will you see him. Forever you will wonder if your triumph was truly all that you desired, at this cost. For just as I cannot know whether the monk and the slayer were driven apart by shame and mistrust, you can only hope that wretch Inuyasha is alive and well. And if he is indeed in full health," Naraku said, emboldened by her apparent diffidence, "why does he not come for you?"

That she had an answer for; she hesitated only a moment. "The only people able to go through the Bone Eater's well are Inuyasha and me. For some reason, the well won't let me pass to the other side. I'm guessing it's because the Shikon jewel isn't around anymore." There was an audible gasp from her adversary. The revelation had struck a chord deep in him, but she did not regard it as her advantage. _That's right_, she thought somberly, _with things as they are now, we're both at a standstill_.

The pavement had taken an orange hue; her side of the earth was beginning its periodic shunning of the sun. There was still light enough, however, to make a point. "This is my new bike—my bicycle," she said, standing and making an introductory gesture with her hand palm up. Naraku gave only a distracted lift of the eyebrow; if she didn't know better, she would have thought he was distraught with the loss of ambitions and dreams. "I made sure to pick a mountain one that wouldn't break down easy. It had to have handlebars and a backseat for someone else to stand or sit—that was just like the old pink one, remember?" He remained impassive except for a shade of annoyance—or maybe that was the purple on his eyelids, she fleetingly considered. "I wanted one thing different, though. This time it's red."

It was red, unmistakably. It gleamed, by virtue of her polishing, garish in the twilight's growing haze. To a killer like Naraku, the color meant blood, or petty anger which could be used, or perhaps his own intense, scathing, yet vacant eyes. In the language of flowers it represented love, of course, but also courage and determination. It could serve to set apart the Shinto miko's robes as holy; in the world yet not of it. To Kagome it was flame, and the bearer of that which withstood it.

"I don't care if you stick around for the rest of my life," she said. "It doesn't matter that you're here and Inuyasha's not. Because of what we did, we all did together, I'm strong. You couldn't beat us then, and you won't beat me now."

The challenge lay open between them. She was taking a monumental risk by provoking him, given how little time he had been in the world without being able to kill anything, but this was one gamble she felt could pay off if her bluff was successful. She believed it likely he would be deterred, and not just because he had seen her in action. Kagome had endured and overcome every fiendish, underhanded cocktail of craziness he had ever thrown at her; even as he appraised her, she saw that just by speaking out boldly she had made a dent in his confidence. She had repeatedly demonstrated tenacity where it was not expected. Many times she had rescued people from peril all on her lonesome. The question remained: would she be able to save herself?

That very question burned in Naraku's translucent eyes. "You seem so certain, Kagome," he said. She did not flinch, but frowned, the shape of her lips mirroring his. Their locked eyes could have fried stray insects; the animosity was palpable enough to make the spiritually sensitive sick. She began picking up the things that would be stowed again in the shed and placing them in the basket.

"Of course I'm sure," she replied, wheeling the bicycle to the sheltered side of the building. The red hue of the sky had become brushed over with deep blue. The clouds were coming to conquer the stars. "I have nothing to worry about but a dumb ghost who can't do anything."

Behind her was only silence. It was the silence of a villain who had seldom been made to digest the rebukes given him. Kagome had never kept her thoughts on the exploits and personal traits of any of her many captors to herself; this had landed her in many a pickle naturally, but this time the tables had turned. She felt a surge of accomplishment with every jab she got in at Naraku, and really, she mused, things could only get better. Though he could be glib or acrid when it suited him, talking was also near the top of her list of talents. And where she had the love and support of her family and friends, he had nothing to lean on, not even the nothingness inside him personified, since he had destroyed it—her?—by his own hand. That made him—so long as her behavior did not stray into the abnormal and alert others—more vulnerable than she. He can't hurt me, she thought. Not if I don't let him.

With this in mind, she happily all but bounded up the stairs to the house's second story. While she went through the motions of her before-bed routine, dodging the other household inhabitants and at the usual time fighting for and winning the bathroom from the resident human pest known as her brother, Naraku kept his silence. The previous night he had seen what the family was up to and waited in the hall willingly; he could not have cared less about mortal human hygiene (Kagome wondered how someone so intrinsically filthy managed to keep up appearances, eyeshadow included). This night he delivered a repeat importance, choosing to take a post in the hall; if his arms had followed his head into the twenty-first century, they would be crossed.

Kagome passed him on her way to her bedroom and noticed a subtle difference in the way he carried himself midair this night, but did not deign to voice her fancy. Later she would identify it as a hint of what was to come.

* * *

Next chapter should be the last; we finally get to the meat of it, so expect plenty of dialogue. Please review! Was the Tutu mention awkward? I was just thinking Kagome could relate, and anyway it's an anime I recommend. Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Inuyasha. The original manga was written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi, manka-ka of Ranma ½, Maison Ikkoku, Urusei Yatsura, and Rinne.

She awoke to the screams of her brother.

He was young, so he sounded shrill and defenseless, and though she knew her mother was hurrying to his rescue before she heard the frantic footsteps she flew from her own bed, inexorably drawn by the note of terror ever-present in her memories of the feudal era. It was the sound of homes, communities, or fortresses against the demonic hordes toppling down; of every bit of sense of security being stripped away, the crevices of the heart flooded with that emotion which had a person breathless, desperate, and grasping: fear. It had been so long since she had last heard this and she had taken for granted she would never hear it in the modern era that it was quite the jolt. She arrived at her brother's doorway out of practice and unprepared.

Her mother was already attending to Souta, who writhed in his sheets; his eyes bulged, but he was not conscious. His limbs flailed, knocking off the actions figures form his side-table drawer and hitting his mother, who grabbed at his hands to protect him from edges. A hoarse shout from behind—"Hold him down! I brought five sacred sutras!"—told her Gramps had hobbled over as quickly as he could. Her mother shouted back that it was hardly the time, then, after her son contorted to kick at her shoulder, that anything was worth a try and couldn't Kagome stop staring and join in? Through this Souta emptied his lungs at full volume, hysterically declaring:

"They're everywhere! They're on us! They've got us!"

Kagome blinked, and there they were. Hundreds of spiders scampering up the furniture, onto the lamp, leaping from shelf to shelf, and yes, swarming to cover the bodies of each of the family. Souta's bed was layered thickly with a wriggling, glittering mass of black which was advancing on and threatening to overtake Souta, who did not capitulate only out of terror. Gramps brusquely pushed past her and bent over the bed, but she saw a blue flame and knew the sutras' power had already been neutralized. Gramps was not naturally privy to things like these, so he chanted in actual futility but with sincere hope. Kagome saw the spiders turn in toward her own legs. She stomped, and when she heard a familiar laugh she stomped again, but with fury.

"Kagome, that isn't helping anyone," snapped her mother, though Gramps was not interrupted. She grappled with her son for his safety, but Souta would not be quelled as the clumps of arachnids which had shelter in the creases of his sheets burgeoned and moved all the closer to his exposed face as they multiplied.

The pallid, loathsome face which had marshalled the spiders and this terror with them was grinning grotesquely at her from the ceiling. Kagome took three quick steps into the room, flipped Gramps away from the bed by firmly turning his torso on his shoulder, and unceremoniously moved her mother in much the same way. She swiped once with her arm over the sheets, making her mother cry out for fear that Souta would be hit. "What are you doing?!"

"That's enough!" roared Kagome. The spiders had shrunken at the presence of purity, but were scuttling back to reclaim territory. She snatched both her brother's hands out of the air and gripped them in hers. "Snap out of it! Souta, nothing's here! Wake up, you're delirious!" The only way that she knew to dispel an illusion was to pierce through it with truth and purity, which she had always done just by being herself in the moment, following her instincts. At this moment, she felt a good smacking would do the job, but she could not risk it in front of the present company, so she shook her brother once, then yanked him out of the bed and dropped him. He sat up stiffly and opened his mouth, poised to resume screaming.

But Kagome would have none of it. "Stand up!" she barked, using the word Japanese schools started the day with. He obeyed as if on cue, and Kagome was never so glad for the ritual. She followed with the command to bow, as in respect to the instructor, and all at once he regained his senses.

"I ain't bowing to you, sis!" he said indignantly. "Nuh-uh no way no—" He interrupted himself by blinking and squinting in the occlusion. No one had thought to turn on the lights. Kagome watched him tilt his small, juvenile head at each of the human shapes in his room. "What're you guys doing here? What's going on?"

"What are you talking about, boy?" Gramps was only too ready to churlishly supply the answer. "You were possessed! Either that or you were having a terrible vision. Don't you remember?"

"He doesn't have to," said Mom. She gave Gramps a reproving look he seemed to feel if not see. She wrapped her arms around the son who had just been striking out at her. "Souta, you're all right now, honey, you're safe."

"I know I am, Mom." Souata was one part embarrassed and one part annoyed at being the center of sympathetic attention. He definitely was not faking extraordinary resilience. He actually believed he was safe, and had been safe all night so far as he knew. He thought he had drifted off to sleep, and next thing he knew he was standing in protest at unjust humiliation. The sheen of cold sweat over his body was yet unnoticed.

Kagome was beside herself. So it had been an illusion! Her brother had indeed been visited by an invasion of the mind, but it was only of his subconscious, which meant no matter how violent the nightmare, it only had as much influence over his waking life as he allowed. Souta was a profoundly unspiritual child for one of a line of priests, so it was likely that now that the horrific vision was out of his mind's eye the idea of it was also snuffed out for good. His emerging unmolested, however, was not an end the likes of which may be expected the next time. Naraku had made a daring move in response to her challenge, and now Kagome saw that he had calculated that he would not need material manipulation. After all, he had always done his worst work within a creature's psyche.

She left the scene of recovery from fright forgotten without a word to anyone. She led the monster who hid in helpless little boys' rooms and gobbled up their fear down the stairs, through the kitchen—plucking a flashlight from the junk drawer on the way—out the door, and to the shrine. Most people, after dealing with a skin-crawling spider nightmare, would gravitate toward a cozy, secure bed rather than a spooky abandoned basement-like place, but Kagome needed a center of power. The tree, the site of Inuyasha's early demise, she could better draw strength from, but it was out in the open and would not muffle her raised voice: she intended to yell.

Kagome all but slammed the door to the shrine shut. "Why are you doing this?!" she demanded, whipping the flashlight out and brandishing its beam at her foe. She was the prosecutor, he the unremorseful repeat offender with crimes against humanity, demonkind, and anything living in between on his rap sheet, which would be a tome if real. "How dare you involve my brother?! He's got nothing to do with anything!"

_Okay, stupid question_, Kagome thought privately as his smile was joined by a taunting lifted eyebrow. _This guy messes with whoever, wherever, just for kicks_. "What does it matter to me if he did nothing?" asked Naraku nonchalantly.

"Fine," snapped Kagome, but immediately amended, "no, not fine! I'm sick of you being here, and I think it's time you move on with your afterlife! I'm going to get rid of you, Naraku," she said, aggressively addressing him by name to counter his use of hers. He only seemed pleased to have gotten under her skin.

The time was approaching one a.m., the witching hour. Could she make it an entire school day without tipping off classmates to the would-be-poltergeist she was warding off? No—in every scenario Kagome imagined, she was outed by the necessity of loudly-spoken words or out of place, militant actions to keep the bad spirit away. It had to end this next day, a Sunday, or she would be forced to resume her middle-school truant ways.

With a deadline in mind, so to speak, Kagome was determined. The method for banishing a ghost from the temporal world, so far as she knew from her limited experience, was to talk to it until it felt ready to journey to the next world. "Most ghosts have one thing in common," she considered aloud. "Unfinished business."

"And here I thought I had been sent here as a reward." This reply was not completely sarcastic, and she suppressed a growl. The notion of him getting something out of death, after all he had put everyone through, was impossible to bear. He did not flinch at the flashlight's beam, remaining calm when she shook it. For the first time she thought it was a pity he was untouchable. She could not bring him down with a spare sacred arrow.

But she _would_ finish it this day. Kagome would not be cheated of her hard-won, even if imperfect peace. She turned off the flashlight and went to leave the shrine without letting him bait her. Midway to the house she stopped. "Why are you always following me?" she asked in a low tone. She sensed him in the black, but was not afraid, only irritated and puzzled. "I'm glad that you're not haunting someone who can't handle it, but I know I'm not your favorite person. What's stopping you from being invisible and impotent somewhere else?"

His unkempt hair bristled at her own baiting, but he answered icily. "Do not mistake my position as your doing, Kagome. For reasons unknown to me, if I try to wander where I would, I become less of substance. It seems that away from you, Kagome, I am less myself." She nearly snorted at the pseudo-romantic word choice. "If your supposition holds water, wench"—oh, so he had sensed her second of inner laughter—"then I as well will be only too happy to finish this 'business', so far as that refers to."

"Okay then," said Kagome, "but now that I know you can't escape, I'm not stopping until you're gone, so I hope you're ready for a long night."

With eyes adjusted to the dark she stealthily entered the kitchen and pilfered the pantry for snacks—a few fun-sized bags of chips, but full packs of soft cookies and doughnuts because she had a feeling she would need some sweetness down the line. Carefully she lowered each package into a cloth grocery tote, then stopped after resting it on a chair. On the table were a first aid kit and a brief note from her mother imploring her to be careful. Evidently she had surmised that her daughter had found a way to travel through the well again and thoughtfully laid out supplies in case there was time for Kagome to zip back before a battle. Ashamed of being inconsiderate, not disclosing the full story to her most steadfast ally, Kagome left both items on the table and went out the door silently.

She crossed the stone pavement to the shed. The night air was cool but not chilly, owing to the season, and still, not vibrating with the cricket and frog calls common in the feudal era. She set the tote by the door and ducked inside. Even with the flashlight, she groped on her left side with her hand, trying not to lean on any towers of pans or porcelain. Every time she claimed a foothold she paused and swung the flashlight toward her destination. A few minutes of searching in this meticulous manner yielded her target: one ancient, decrepit lantern. This lantern differed from those of the feudal era, though, in its circuitry, which allowed for up to ten hours of artificial light through battery power. It was just Kagome's luck that a stash of batteries lay nestled directly beside it. She bent over awkwardly to scoop both into one bundle and retraced her steps clumsily, her balance decreased by half. Throughout this voyage Naraku loomed at her shoulder, peering at the décor with veiled interest and distracting her left-sided mobility. She meandered back to the door, deposited the bundle on the ground in order to reorient herself in the direction of the shrine, and set off again with the lantern, batteries, and a veritable junk-food feast in tow.

Inside the shrine Kagome spread her supplies neatly. She placed the lantern in front of the Bone Eater's well and the flashlight, still shining, on the lowest step so she could fiddle with the lantern. When she successfully turned it on she backed up into the penultimate step and, once assured by a half minute of steady electric illumination, switched the flashlight off. The gloom which permeated the place usually she drove off by opening a bag of ginger snaps. "What are you waiting for? Go where I can see you," Kagome told the ghost. She popped a spicy cookie in her mouth and sucked on it.

It was no longer a novelty to find that he obliged her. After all, he had no better alternative way to spend the morning. Kagome looked up from her bag and saw him on the other side of the lantern, just before the well and not above it. His own phosphorescent glow was dim and not enhanced by the lantern, but the device was strictly for her comfort only, anyway, and in his outline an expression of long-suffering was clear. "Am I to understand that you have a plan, Kagome?" His tone was deriding.

"Sure," she said, the soft lumps passing easily down her throat. Even artificial spices had a positive effect on her attitude. "Whenever a ghost needs to move on, the pattern is that the ghost confronts its past and remembers what it did that it regrets, or what it failed to do in life. With you I'm guessing it's both, since there's plenty of stuff you did that even normal demons wouldn't have…"

"Certainly any demon would have done what I did," he said, taking a stab at her naiveté. "They simply did not have the means, whereas I had the cunning to obtain my desires."

"I'm not so sure you got what you wanted, though," said Kagome, who was not naïve. She had been the near-victim of many other demons, none of whose malevolence came close to that of Naraku. She remembered shouting something like this before he died. When she accused him of not pursuing his true desire, of not even recognizing it, he had seemed totally defensive, as if that were the heart of the matter. Now he pursed his lips and did not answer. She let it drop for the time being. "Anyway, it's worth a shot to go through everything you did and see if there's anything you wish you hadn't done."

"Ridiculous." As smile bloomed on him like a poisonous mushroom.

"That's the usual way," said Kagome, who thought that conventional way or not, there was slim chance he would show remorse. He was a sadist through and through. But she had decided this had to be solved immediately, it would not wait for school, and she knew of no other way. "We've got to confront the sins of your past, and we'll see where it goes from there."

"Where should we begin?" asked Naraku, eyes gleaming. He had no qualms with recounting tales of his atrocities. If anyone had asked him while he was alive he would have been bored with the question and simply killed the one asking. Now he looked forward to seeing the miko who had been such a thorn in his side squirm as her good intentions shifted to horror and melted away.

Kagome sensed as much and took the bait regardless. Well, since you started something tonight with my brother, how about Kohaku? Aren't you sorry about everything you did to him? I mean, he was just a little kid and you took away his home and his family and then kept him around for no good reason."

"No other retainer of mine carried out my orders in such a marvelous fashion," said Naraku. He took pleasure in the personal touch of anger Kagome had inadvertently infused her statement with. "Kohaku was simply non-expendable. In the beginning I only wished for Sango to suffer for failing to kill Inuyasha, but when that did happen, and so beautifully because of the bond they had shared, I decided to put off disposing of him. He was useful not only for going places I could not, but also because his mere continued existence caused strife and confusion in your group. I was perpetually astounded that he was not killed by any of you," he said, laughing a small-hearted tyrant's laugh. "His death would have been advantageous to you, and a mercy to the boy."

"Advantageous?" The first time Kagome had been beyond revolted, when she felt only abhorrence toward another living being and the need to eradicate it from the world, was at the castle illusion of Naraku's fabrication. She had announced her desire that he disappear and loosed an arrow, the sanctity of which put his body out of commission; later he had arranged for a new one. On that day she attacked with such ferocity in solidarity with their new ally, but that was not all which compelled her. His manipulation was wholly wicked and his deceptions birthed enmity where none should have been. He was totally, completely, unequivocally evil, and if she had the means to banish him from everyone's lives she would take the shot.

This resolve of intolerance for evil brimmed in her eyes now. Naraku's smile did not become unhinged, however, probably as a result of having received so many death glares and because there was no quiver in sight. "Yes, Sango especially would have benefited by clearing the closest link to her past, and would have become all the more motivated to belay me with full force. As it was, she did not allow herself ease of mind. Instead she constantly wondered: would this day be the one when I, Naraku, reclaimed my shard from her dear departed brother?" His eyes lazily rolled up. "Perhaps I should have, but then that would have also been cruel—isn't that what you are going to say?"

It had been, and she resisted the urge to contradict him out of spite. "Even though he was trapped, Kohaku was never yours. He was always Kohaku, Sango's brother, and nothing you made him do could ever change that."

"But I came so deliciously close," he replied, not deigning to look at her and instead gazing at the darkness around them, "to having her exterminate her own brother. Many times the pieces fell into place so easily without my aid. Yet, I believe much of the blame lies with Sango. It is her inaction which compounded the blood of scores of humans on the hands of little Kohaku."

Kagome stopped herself. Continuing at this point would not serve an ending to the cyclic argument. He was evading the role of scapegoat not because he was ashamed, but because he wanted her to feel foolish defending her friends. She sucked on her ginger snap, dug in the bag in vain, set the bag neatly to her right, and chose a tiny carton of gold fish.

"Let's move on," she said after clearing her throat. She deliberately crunched on the salty snacks for the jolt from the sweet and spicy taste of the ginger snaps. "Miroku: I'm not gonna lie and say that that curse didn't come in handy sometimes, but altogether it was a horrible thing you did to him."

"I see we are only to speak of those important to you," he said with a sigh. "Very well. I cursed the monk's grandfather because he was interfering with me."

"Whatever you were up to then, I'm sure he had good reason to try and stop you," she said, thinking of Hitomiko. There had been fifty years before the Shikon jewel had been found during which Naraku had roamed virtually unchecked. Fortunately for everyone he was limited by his own power as a half-demon, but even then he had been capable of killing several children and the Shinto priest Hitomiko had looked up to.

Naraku feigned to think on this seriously. "I was only waiting for the Shikon jewel to arrive," he said with a pretense of innocence. "That monk Miyatsu followed me wherever I would go to be with humans for a bit of diversion, and by making things unpleasant for me so brought that bit of unpleasantness on himself and his descendants."

"That curse was death for him—for them!" She stressed this so he could not gloss over it with his kneaded words. "It killed them. Miroku was constantly wondering which time would be the last time he'd be able to use the Wind Tunnel! He was so afraid that his hand would suck in everybody he cared about!"

"Yes, that is why I did it," said Naraku dryly.

As she had been saying it she knew he was only happy to hear it. She tried to tone it down; she was only flustering herself. "It's because of the Wind Tunnel that Miroku and Sango almost didn't get engaged, but they did anyway. He wasn't gonna ask her because he didn't think it would be fair to leave her a widow for certain, and soon, but you know—" she interrupted herself with a bunny-trail which could not be passed up. "It's actually a sort of a good thing. I don't mean I'm gonna thank you for cursing Miroku, and he wouldn't either, but it's partly because of the curse that they met each other at all, and then because we were always fighting that he stopped and looked for someone to share his life with." _He figured out he didn't need just anyone to bear his children_, she thought with pride for her friend's progress, _but someone to love and meet the future with_. Anything precious is raised higher in a person's perception by a sense of urgency. "It's because of you they fell in love!" She grinned and pointed at him with the hand bearing a goldfish.

"You are welcome," he said with narrowed eyes. "Of course you know it was not my intention that the first monk would reproduce. You will remember I attempted to rectify this many times. It cannot be helped now, but I wish you had kept that to yourself."

There was genuine anger in his bearing; if anything was genuine about him, Kagome knew she could trust his anger. She found it curious that he did not phrase a threat, but only expressed his distaste. This she could file for later.

"We've talked about them already, I guess," she conceded, dropping three more goldfish crackers in her mouth. Her chewing allowed time to consider their next topic. She had a feeling that Inuyasha was one of two persons she could not yet bring up; she would have to do this gradually. Deciding to take a step back and gain some breathing room for both of them, she went for a more distant relation. "Okay then, so what did Kouga ever do to you?"

He was surprised, and answered shortly, "He had jewel shards."

"Yeah, but maybe you could have, you know, not killed off the rest of his gang just for that," Kagome said, wondering if she was somehow insulting her friend by thinking of him momentarily as a gang leader. Well, his rugged image and headband didn't help matters.

Naraku was looking at her with his head cocked at an angle. "What would you have had me do? I hardly expected him to deliver the shards of his own accord." After so many schemes, he seemed to be having difficulty recalling the particular ones referred to readily. "Besides, are you saying you would rather that I had killed only Kouga, and let his wolves swarm unhindered over the human lands?"

"It was because of his vendetta against you that he was always in danger," she said. It was true that the wolf tribe had been man-eating before Kouga was introduced to a human he valued as more than prey, but damned if she would let Naraku push the idea that slaughter of some begot life of many. "All the guys in his pack were counting on him, and they went through so much to get payback for what happened because of your stupid plan which failed anyway!"

"For a time," said Naraku smoothly. But he was not having any of her conversation maneuvers. "No, I will not apologize for what I have done in order to gain the Shikon jewel. In any case, I destroyed as many demons as I did humans, and that must have worked in your favor. While I was occupied with my own devices, demons were reluctant to appear in the open, and humans went about their pathetic lives none the wiser. Wouldn't it have been better for humans if the entire wolf demon tribe had been extinguished?"

And for ten seconds Kagome could say nothing, because the Japanese wolf had indeed been extinct for more than a century now, and when she thought about it the subjugation of demonkind had to have coincided with the flourishing of human civilization. As usual, though, her mouth opened without her brain having commanded it, and spouted something she technically believed. "Well I don't know what they're up to now but it seems like after everything back then they were all okay, so if they managed to survive for that long and went on living, and we—I mean humans—are all okay here too, then it worked out fine with them not all being killed, and probably would have if none of them were killed."

"Kouga only became an ally of your group because of my doing." Naraku spoke as if to wave away her disjointed, clumsy monologue. "That day eventually caused him to be near when I needed the jewel shards embedded in his legs, rather than off using them for the gain of his tribe. I trusted him to follow me closely because I had ensured his purpose for doing so. As for you," he said with a rueful, twisted smile, "fate seems to have thrown your group the bone because of these losses."

She barely registered his final statement. _Keep your friends close and your enemies closer_. That was certainly the case for Naraku. He trusted his enemies to consistently attack him, but his allies were also his enemies. Essentially, she presumed, this meant they were all far from him. The hanyou could trust no one, except to betray him. Her attack could come from this premise. She recalled that before he died she had postulated that he had ripped people apart over and over again out of his fascination for relationships.

The most violent breakaways had been carried out by Hakudoshi and Moryomaru, but Naraku had predicted their actions and met them prepared. He had even reabsorbed the Infant, his own heart which he had intentionally made physically weak, only after defeating it. Since Naraku had seen all their betrayals coming, Kagome doubted he would be affected by their stories. But around that same time Kagura had been killed, and soon after the one incarnation least likely to be thrown away for bad behavior—Kanna.

Kagome vacillated between them, wondering which she should speak of first. She had decided to ease into the juiciest subject, and she saw Naraku staring at her with irritated boredom. He must have realized her Kouga topic was only a distraction, though he would not suspect it had been to tranquilize his mood. The one who would offend Naraku least is…

"So," she broke the silence with, having set the goldfish box down and reached for the powdered doughnuts. "Your incarnations…you made them during the times when you were weak, right?" The pastries were jelly-free; she was grateful. "That was when you messed around with your body and threw away what you didn't like or need."

"I cast aside many demons who could not serve me," he told her. "I assumed the monk must have informed you that when I chose to, I could become vulnerable in one way and stronger in another."

"That's where the incarnations came from, then? They were actually demons before you absorbed them, and then you let them out so long as they promised to do evil and nothing but evil stuff?"

He gave her a completely exasperated look, the I-tire-of-your-idiocy expression, then raised his eyebrows. "Why should I let them live separately once they had become part of me? No. Much like the monk's curse, I cannot speak for the souls of those whom I consumed," he grinned at her, as always, visible disgust. "But the individual persons all vanished forever from this world."

"If they weren't themselves before we saw them, what were they?"

This question was more pointed, but he bluntly answered without seeming to pick up on it. "They came from me, of course. You called them incarnations, though I am certain you did not arrive at that term by yourself." She didn't respond, instead exaggerating the sublime taste of three doughnuts stuffed in her cheeks by fluttering her eyelashes. "As it happens the term is accurate. Just as it implies, something without form was given form. Those beings came from within my own consciousness. Not that of Onigumo," he clarified at her one raised eyebrow, "but mine."

"Kanna represented 'Void'," said Kagome after a difficult swallow. "How is that even part of someone? You aren't a thing, you're a 'someone'—that much I'll admit," she said grudgingly. "Is it because you're evil? I guess you could say that if cold is the absence of heat—" she had heard this long ago in elementary school science class and remembered it because very few academic anecdotes remained with her—"then hate is the absence of love and evil is the absence of good. Wait then, if Kanna represented your inability to do good, then why did you stay evil?"

"She was a human-like projection of Nothing, or Emptiness," muttered Naraku, growing tired of the tangent. "Nothing of myself was lost in her creation. She embodied my will to let thing pass as they would. As such, she was completely obedient and never faltered, even until the end." _Unlike the rest of those worthless… _

Kagome heard the thought and was startled. Naraku caught this and glared, then blinked noncommittally. It was nothing private. That was the vibe he was giving off, but she was about to test it. "Oh," she said, pulling on the very same gleeful expression she had wanted to smack off his face the previous afternoon. "You don't know?"

"Don't know?" His mouth was small and pinched so as not to reveal any emotion, but his eyes flickered so that she knew he had not missed her tone.

"You really never found out?"

He opened his mouth, then shut it. As mischievously as Kagome beamed at him through naughty-cat eyes, he glared dangerously. Or it would seem dangerous had she not known that he was not.

"I don't believe this. I figured you knew about everything," she babbled, actually becoming happy now that the tables had turned, "but of course, this explains why you were so surprised! You really were tricked, weren't you? And not just at the end, by the jewel…!"

"Enough," he snapped. But less than a second later he had regained his Ice King composure. "What is this that I simply must know, now that I am dead and the things of the temporal world do not concern me?"

"Well," began Kagome with relish, for his lethal stare told her he was taking this personally. Then she realized that he would only rise to meet her impishness. She too quieted down and faced him somberly. "Kanna…do you remember how she died? You were making her kill herself."

"Yes," said Naraku, a bit of disappointment seeping into the word as the topic was now back to someone so inconsequential. "I had given her a final task and she was failing. Her purpose was to serve me. I thought it best to end the battle while she had a chance of taking some of you with her to Hell."

"But she didn't want to die." The protest came out as a blurt. Kagome suddenly felt guilty, as though she had divulged a secret to the one person to be avoided as a recipient. Kanna had transmitted a vision, during her final moments, through a shard of her shattered mirror into her own eye. The vision had given everyone against Naraku hope; it was a direct betrayal of him, a revelation of his weakness. Kagome's next words were measured out slowly as cups of flour. "She was sad to go."

"Didn't…want?" Naraku also spoke haltingly. He looked over her head. A furrow appeared between his eyebrows, but was quickly gone, replaced by his standard bored expression. "I had wondered whether she regretted not being able to destroy my enemies. But after all, she was Nothing. She had no feelings. You waste your time on Kanna? She only obeyed. Of them all, she was the only one who never wavered on her loyalty." He repeated this almost sternly, as if she were at fault for bringing forth an invalid example.

"Like I said, she was sad that she had to die." Kagome crackled the plastic wrapping of the doughnuts, not meeting his eyes. "So just that one time, at the end, she used her power to tell me, tell us that you were weak. She showed me the light in the Shikon jewel, the one..."

But Naraku turned on her a glare of such ferocity that she flinched. She had not uttered the forbidden name, but she had been about to, and it was that combined with her shocking disclosure that had provoked his sudden and silent wrath. A tiny ember of pity stirred for him in her heart, despite her better knowledge. He was unhinged by what would have made her crazy too: the unwelcome notion that a trusted friend secretly harbored hatred for him. Although he deserved every bit of this emotional pain, it was still difficult for Kagome to watch. The gleam in his eyes was raw and conveyed outrage; he had not seen it coming. Never would he have expected that his eldest, most loyal underling would turn against him. Kagome guessed that he had on some level deliberately made first what he thought was "Nothing" because it supposedly could never hold the proper feelings of hatred toward its demonic maker.

He cleared his features all at once. "Kanna died serving me. What she felt in her last moment makes no difference." His face became closed, his voice tightly constricted. Kagome thought that now was better than never.

"Then I guess it makes no difference that Kagura died happy, too." Naraku blinked. Kagome continued, "Well, we only think she was happy because Sesshomaru said she was smiling. I bet if she was smiling just because he was there, she must have thought a lot about him," she said, now smiling herself. She licked the powder from a finger and nibbled the last doughnut; with this last bit of sweetness she was going to finish. So long as she was uninhibited by the opinions of others in this dark enclosed space, she added, "She either liked him a lot or really wanted him to _get_ you for her."

"Kagura had designs on my death almost from the beginning," said Naraku, looking bored again. "All the rest followed suit after her, although she was not explicit."

"Why do you think that is?"

"I suppose because of unsatisfactory working conditions."

"No, I mean, why do you think she was the first to resent you?"

He smiled wickedly. "Because I held her heart in the palm of my hand, and she could not go where she would."

Kagome adjusted her pile of wrappers a bit further from her while she thought. She locked her hands together in front of her knees. "So you held her heart hostage." Naraku kept his sardonic smile, indifferent. "You don't think maybe that was the wrong thing to do? Don't answer that." He cocked his head to one side amusedly. She was reeling him in. "Here's the thing. Everyone but Byakuya rejected you, even though they all came _from_ you. You make everyone hate you, and I think it's because you don't have anything but hate."

"I had the Shikon jewel for a time as well," he reminded her with some pride. "I certainly held it longer than you did, Kagome."

"But in the end you didn't have anybody with you, Naraku," she rejoined, and keeping a stiff upper lip, pressed on: "Inuyasha was right. He realized that demonic power wasn't worth losing the bonds he had made with everyone, and that made him stronger. You _used_ people and threw them away. No wonder you lost!" The tension in the room was growing as he became angrier. "Yeah, you were always laughing at Inuyasha, but he beat you in every possible way! He was stronger because of who he loved and who loved him! _Nobody_ loved _you_."

Immediately she felt sick. The words she had uttered were vile; as contemptible as Naraku was, to reveal this was hateful, and she felt the action soiled her. Naraku's eyes burned into her own.

"You know what I mean." Kagome took a deep breath. "Inuyasha was loved, and you weren't, and that's why you lost."

"I never sought love," he spat, "because it was of no use to me."

"Wrong!" shouted Kagome. "You hated everybody because Kikyo didn't love you!"

A wave of cold hit her, and a slap of heat followed quickly. She waited without reacting. It seemed he had a few poltergeist powers after all, but she could not allow him to know this. "Kagura was part of you because Kikyo was so important to you! She represented what you wanted but could never have, so you made sure you had her no matter what! That's why you kept her around even though she betrayed you!"

"BE QUIET!" He roared, but Kagome had long become accustomed to people yelling at her.

"Why are you yelling?" She shouted back. Without realizing it she had stood up. She nearly toppled off of the second step, but stamped her foot in place and faced him. Giddily, she added a satisfied grin. "You never shouted about Kikyo when you alive. You always said it was Onigumo, not you, who loved her."

"Little…" Here he said a word she had not thought been formed yet in the feudal era. It was so absurd she might have laughed, except that his eyes were so wide and his irises so red that the dark behind them seemed to swell all the darker. He had deliberately lowered his voice to the effect that her skin prickled with the knowledge that had he been alive, she would have died ten times over already. "I hated Kikyo and I hate you as well. Do you forget the many times I attempted to end her and the one where I succeeded? From the moment she mocked me with your shards of the jewel I vowed to kill her."

"Because her opinion mattered to you," interjected Kagome. "You loved her and it hurt that she didn't love you, so you decided she should suffer so long as she didn't love you. That's why you killed her the first time and why you kept trying to kill her once you saw that her feelings hadn't changed after she thought Inuyasha had killed her."

"I only…" Naraku seemed to struggle. Kagome squinted and noticed his thin lips were trembling and his throat was undulating although no air passed through his trachea. The ghost of Naraku had less power over his discretion; he was compelled to honesty, and as he learned this he recoiled even as he spoke candidly. "I did not wish for Kikyo's death when I was born. I intended that she kill that fool Inuyasha and corrupt the jewel by healing the wounds I gave her. After that I would take the jewel and become a full demon, and then I would take her."

"You wanted Kikyo's heart," said Kagome. "That's why you held on to Kagura's heart. But look, Naraku," she said, then sighed, and took a moment to sit back down on the step and hold her chin in her hands. "It couldn't be helped. You can't control who somebody else loves. Inuyasha loved Kikyo too, you know."

Naraku shook himself from his mortification (pun intended) at telling the truth. "Yes, that worked out well for you, did it not?"

She only glanced at him and held it with half-lidded eyes. It was her turn to be exasperated. "In the beginning I was kind of like you, you know? I was always comparing myself to Kikyo, and well, it was obvious that she was better than me: a better fighter, a better healer, and even a better lover. Inuyasha kissed her even though she was dead. I know he did because I was there." She was not bitter. She recounted her past troubles with the same cordiality as was unintentionally given to her by her guest. Her eyes lowered. "Their love was so strong, death didn't kill it! Not in the end, anyway. That's something really great, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't want it for myself, with Inuyasha."

"That fool—" He seemed unable to stop himself.

She did it for him. "He was brave, and strong, and kind once he learned how to be. I wanted him to look at me the way he did at Kikyo, but actually that wouldn't have been really our love after all. I decided the next best thing was to stay beside him even though he loved her and not me, and just help him in any way I could. I didn't try to worm my way into his heart," she said, and she lifted her head. "I just wanted the best for him, and to keep him from facing the worst alone. He wanted to become a full demon, too, but decided against it because he didn't want to leave all of us. Kikyo had her bond with Inuyasha, but he and I made our own, and it didn't happen because either of us made it happen.

"So then, Naraku," she said after a pause. "You said that Kanna represented Void, or the ability to stand by and allow things. What do you think would have happened if you had let things fall without messing around with everyone?"

"Onigumo would have perished where he lay," answered Naraku. "And I would never have come into the world."

"Neither would I have," said Kagome. As she spoke, she surprised herself. "What happened, happened. Kikyo died with the Shikon jewel and I was able to come through the well into the past world and meet Inuyasha." She remembered Miroku telling her of fate and suffering, and the characters of good and evil on Earth, and whether it all had meaning, whether it all fell into place. "You caused so much evil, I can't thank you for what you did, but I will tell you that I don't blame you entirely. It was fate. The world was destined for all of us: even you."

Naraku said, "How cruel."

Then a warm breath descended, and Kagome was enveloped in golden light which she traced to the lantern first before seeing that it came from behind Naraku. He was blinking, looking around at the walls of the shrine and then back at her, but not nervously. For the first time he looked at her with ungrudging respect. The light grew brighter around and through his small shape, outlining and suffusing it.

"Priestess," he said, nodding formally. "I'll be leaving now."

And he did. In a wink he disappeared and the sweet-smelling, flowing yellow escorted him. Kagome was filled with the feeling that it was familiar and foreign, and recognized just enough of the purity and mystery of her sacred arrows to discover that this, wherever it was, was where they came from. She felt tiny and humble to have been its instrument, and bowed.

_So this is what it feels like to be at peace. It's warm._

A/N: That's it! If you have any comments I'd love to hear them, not just because I like reviews, but because I'd like your opinions on whether Naraku was really redeemed at the end. In the anime it looks like he was, but in the manga Rumiko Takahashi seems to have said, "No way, this is one bad dude and he's going down, down, DOWN". I wanted to do a story about how, if not redeemed, he might have been brought to peace about his life. I thought maybe he went through a mini-crisis of identity when Kagome revealed he had never pursued his own goal, and if anything brought him rest—because even in the Christian tradition, people choose Hell rather than Heaven—it might have been the consideration that he had a good run and made things happen. In the anime, I dunno, it's like Inuyasha and Kagome love each other and the power of love purifies all the demons of the jewel along with Naraku, making it disappear. That works too, but Naraku fascinates me by being _evil_. Some Eastern traditions talk about dualism, or something like yin and yang, the idea that there is balance in the world because good cannot exist without its mirror image, evil. The Christian idea is that oh yes it can, but we chose to widen our options and brought suffering along with evil. I suppose then that here Naraku might have gone to Hell anyway. What do you think?


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